CONSERVATION area campaigners have scored their first victory in a battle to stop builders moving in.

Infill Land Consultants wants to tear down two bungalows and a row of garages and replace them

with three four-storey blocks of apartments in Brownlow Road, west Reading.

It has applied for outline planning permission and experts recommended that Reading Borough Council's planning committee gave the go-ahead for the scheme at a meeting on Wednesday.

But after hearing protests from residents, who had come in force to the meeting to urge the committee to preserve the character of the picturesque area, the committee voted

to visit the site before making a decision.

Ward Councillors Paul Gittings and Catherine Wilton also spoke at the meeting on behalf of their 40-plus constituents who have signed a petition against knocking down the 1950s bungalows and replacing them with 14 flats.

Cllr Gittings dubbed the plans "opportunist and unwanted".

He said: "It is not about housing need or about providing affordable housing.

"This is about profit, profit, profit. It will lead to a flood of applications for Downshire Square."

He went on to urge the council to put principles before profit.

Approximately a dozen representatives from the Downshire Square area made their presence felt at the planning applications committee.